There's a good reason most people are paid by the hour. Time is money. We've found that the less money we need, the more time we have for the important things in life. Simplicity and self-reliance shape our lives.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Newish toys

There are a few toys I've been wanting to get for Dan. Thanks to my sister, we have scads of Little People of various professions ... Noah and his cadre of zoo animals, fire and rescue personnel, farmers and their farm animals and crops, construction workers. Every time I spot a Little Person, the insane urge to collect and group them according to their lots in life takes over. (I know, I'm sick, I twitch every time my husband chucks all the Little People into one container.) We have Noah's ark and the fire station along with some construction vehicles, but we didn't have the farm ... until tonight when it turned up on a trip to our favorite thrift shop. There it was ... for 50 cents. No kidding people. 50 cents. This lovely piece of molded, animal-sound making plastic usually costs more than $30. The other toy we stumbled upon was a Magna Doodle which usually costs about $15 or so. We got it also for the bargain basement price of 50 cents. After our new acquisitions got a Clorox wipe down, Dan played for about 90 minutes with his two new toys which cost us a total of $1.00.

Language: I can't keep track of everything Danny says these days. He's become quite the parrot, repeating everything we say. He picks up bits and pieces of our conversations and repeats them randomly. This evening, he ranted about turkey for a few minutes. On Sunday I called up to Jim in the attic only to hear this little voice behind me calling, "Jim, Jim, Jim." We're getting lots of phrases, too, like "pick up toys." Too bad he doesn't actually pick up his toys, but rather tosses them around the living room. Although this evening, Jim started corralling toys using Danny's remote control car. That really freaked Danny out and he started grabbing up his toys before Jim could get them.

Also this week, I've been talking to him about the beach since that's where we're headed for Thanksgiving. So I'll let you use your imagination as to how that word sounds coming out of my two year old's mouth.